ii8 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
BLACK SWAN 
Chenopis atrata 
On the western side of Port Phillip there is surely 
no more admirable home or resting-place for Water- 
fowl — and of these the Swan is pre-eminently the 
chief — than the Connewarre Lakes. The very name 
of the water is due to the great dusky birds which 
thronged it in the days of the Blacks — Koonwarra 
means the Black Swan in the dialect of the tribe 
which roamed the lands of Corio before our fathers 
dispossessed them. At times the birds are there in 
plenty still ; but even a quarter of a century has 
made a change. 
While life lasts I shall not forget my first sight of 
the Big Lake. It was towards the end of the year 
1886 (how the ink has faded in my first bird note- 
book, and how fresh the world surely was on that 
scented November morning !). With another boy, 
who also was fired with the desire of knowing wild 
nature in the open, I had gone by train to Leopold 
(Kensington then), and tramped southwards a mile 
or two without being quite sure of our destination, 
only guided by the vaguest knowledge that somewhere 
ahead lay the ocean, whose faint odour and murmur 
were borne to us on the south-east wind. 
Suddenly, as we reached the top of a grassy rise, 
there burst without warning on our astonished young 
eyes the great splendour of the Lake. At our feet 
